on saturday

i went with my family to see this...

we like to take pictures under the lights

going to the nutcracker has started to become a tradition (we did not intend on matching last year)

i loved my outfit especially my hair

particularly because of the giant bow

my dad came along this year which made it much more amusing

at "half-time" aka intermission we had to explain to him the whole story which he somehow missed

and earlier we were discussing the long dance that the sugar plum fairy has with her cavalier...it seriously goes on forever

anyway i inform them that its a pas de deux and thats just what they are

and when my mom inquires as to what that is exactly my dad chimes in with "so its a pot of deuh?"

and then when the dance was taking place my mom leans over and tells him "this is the pas de deux" to which he replies

"dont curse me"

bahahaha

anyway then we went to mels (which has become part of the tradition)

meatloaf: the only thing my sister orders at this place, shes a strange one

and we took scary face pictures

...what did you do this weekend?

oh christmas tree

heres our decorated christmas tree

a lot of the ornaments i picked up at the dollar store, target, walmart, and goodwill

and i have a few very girly ones i got when i worked at gottschalks and lived in the dorms and had a little 4ft tree

...but most of our ornaments are from this tradition that my family had

...basically we would get an ornament every year (usually depicting something that happened that year, or what we were involved in (i have tons of cheerleading ones!)) and we were all grown up we would have plenty of ornaments to put on our tree!

some of my favorites are:

my glass ballet slippers

tinkerbell

and the little mermaid

and from when i was older:

my first year of college (even though i ended up switching schools)

the year i became a photo major

my sorority

and this is last years from when we moved into our place (which happens to be a townhouse...and i love that there are two little birds on it...fyi im the blue one because its much prettier hehe!)

i finally convinced hubbers to get the ones from when he was little from his mom (she doesnt put them up anymore)

there werent many but i love this one:

i got him these for his contribution to the tree (its very girly)

in honor of this (he was very excited!)

this year my mom got us this bridal couple (its on its way)

and i also got this one because we got engaged last christmas eve!

i absolutely love this tradition and i think i will continue to get us an ornament representing the year and it is definitely something ill do with my kids!